Psychological continuity doesn’t have problems, that’s why it’s the most popular one. People did come up with counter arguments and you ignored them because you’re fixated on your view.
Also your third conclusion doesn’t follow and also assumes a LOT that it cannot prove. Nor it is really strong because it explains nothing and from a certain view, is just a roundabout continuity. If anything you are literally arguing for psychological continuity with it. It’s not strong at all.
I would argue that such questions would not be able to be answered until such technology comes about, because all you’ll get is just speculation and nothing advances. All we are doing is purely guessing without an ability to test it.
I feel like you don’t understand what models are because the term concrete doesn’t really apply to them. They are useful, yes, but the reason for models is because we don’t have direct access to reality. So essentially your goal to “embrace reality” fails out of the gate. Philosophy pretty much proved that goal to be impossible.
What if that doesn’t matter? If there is literally no difference between the mind/personality/consciousness of the original and that of the clone. If there is not a single aspect of the original, no matter how insignificant, that is not also an aspect of the clone. If even they could not tell who was the original. What is the significance of the continuity?
I mean it’s technically physical since it’s a book with pages and the like.
Ehhhhh…not really. It is right to say that i2 resides in your consciousness because that’s all you have access to. Anything “external” is a guess at best.
I would argue it’s still the same i, or rather just i. I say that because I have nothing else to really compare it to.
It exists wherever it physically resides. For a web post, that is on a hard drive somewhere. Otherwise, what is it that underwrites the fact that you apprehend the same I whenever you choose to look at it?
Again to remind, your claim was that it is impossible for something non-physical to emerge from something physical. I, and Great Expectatons, are counterexamples.
I think it is obvious, in the case of the clone meeting the original. The original, going about its day, suddenly encounters the clone. The clone is just another person, one who uncannily resembles the original. Why would any degree of similarity matter for continuity? Not matter how similar, continuity would seem to remain at zero.
I’m not talking here about the physical book. I’m talking about that which the book is an instance of, that which all the different physical representations have in common.
This sounds like what I call Naive Indirect Realism. You don’t just have access to internal representations. Internal representations are how you access the external world. Indirect access in general means you have access to what is indirect, via some intermediary.
This debate recurs here every few years, the counter is still counting down.
They can be compared. You can describe your version of i to me, and I might not recognize it as i at all.
There is nothing non-physical about the marks on the screen or page. They are not I or Great Expectations. They are just symbols representing the words that make up the idea/story. When a sufficiently complex intelligence perceives the symbols, and knows the particular system of symbol representation, its capacity to experience in a non-physical way lets it understand the meaning. The non-physical comes from the complex intelligence, not the marks on the page.
Chat GPT might be intelligent enough, but not complex enough. A chimpanzee might be complex enough, but not intelligent enough. Only humans are both intelligent and complex enough to be capable of this.
The similarity doesn’t matter for continuity. But my question was not whether or not there is continuity. My question was what the significance of the continuity is. IOW, if you can’t tell the difference, what difference does it make? If a man, whether clone or original, goes to his wife and children, and looks, remembers, feels, and behaves exactly as the same as the other would, how is continuity a consideration?
Continuity may not be important for the clone, or for his family. But it is a very important consideration for the original. Are his interests the clones interests, or aren’t they? If the original is agreeing to allow his life to be replaced by the clone, he is agreeing to either:
Continue his life in a new body
Allow his life to be taken by a stranger who happens to think and behave like him
It is either a good deal, or a terrible sacrifice, hinging on whether the clone is a continuation of the original.
I’m actually inclined to agree with the logic you’ve presented, and I admit that it does present a problem for the original argument I’ve made. Still, I do wonder why a later version of you, with almost entirely different atoms, can be part of the same stream of consciousness while a clone cannot.
One proposal I have for solving this problem is that it comes down to quantum probability. When we look at an electron, for example, it is not actually a fixed particle but rather a probability cloud where the electron is far more likely to be localized in one region of space than in areas further away. Thus, at a macro-scale, the electron appears to be localized in a particular orbital, at a particular distance from the nucleus.
If stream of conscious is affected by quantum mechanics in a similar fashion, then if a clone is made of you and you are still alive to encounter it, your stream of consciousness is far more likely to stay with the original because otherwise, you’d go from experiencing the world from one position in space to experiencing the world from the position of the clone in a single second (this would be similar to quantum tunnelling, which happens but is astronomically improbable). It is far more likely that the next moment you experience will be tied to the “you” that is of a more similar position and physical condition to the you of the previous moment.
On the other hand, if the original you dies, the probability that the next moment will be experienced through that you becomes zero. So the stream of consciousness would continue through whatever brain and body are most similar to that which experienced the previous moment.
I think it’s an interesting conjecture that’s worth dissecting further.
What if the clone is created with a replicator? Put someone in the chamber, hit the button, and a duplicate pops up in the other chamber. What if there is no way for the original to know which chamber they entered? Both will think they are the original. One obviously is, but there’s no way of knowing which. The continuity is irrelevant.
When I say GE is non-physical, I’m not talking about the mental state of reading the book. I’m talking about the book itself: not a physical copy, but what the copy represents.
Do you acknowledge this distinction? Or to you, is the non physical mental only?
I am struggling to parse this.
The hypothetical I am putting to you is of separating your atoms and then bringing them together after a tiny amount of time.
Are you saying that you are dead when your atoms are separated but it’s (numerically) the same “you” when the atoms are brought back together?
If so; sure, I don’t think it matters much what we’re calling the status during the time interval of separation. As long as you’re saying that it’s you again when the atoms are reformed I can continue with the standard problematic questions for bodily continuity.
I would say that bodily continuity is probably the more popular view, though of course it doesn’t matter since popularity doesn’t make a model right or wrong.
In terms of counter-arguments to “no continuity” I’ll say it for a third time: I really wish there were counter-arguments. If you could think of one, I’d give you a virtual hug. I could not be further from being “fixated” on NC, I hope it is not true.
This paragraph seems to be alluding to counter-arguments but I am not seeing anything spelled out here. It’s a bad start that you’re beginning by calling it a “conclusion” rather than a proposition or hypothesis.
By “concrete” I (and everyone else that uses the term) mean that we can use them to make accurate predictions. This adjective, in this context, never means claiming that models truly are reality.
The book doesn’t represent anything. Not objectively. I understand that, at first glance, that’s absurd, so let me explain.
Consider DNA. The order of the bases in DNA represent amino acids and proteins. They objectively represent amino acids and proteins. In its natural form and environment, the information encoded in DNA will be processed, and protein will be synthesized. There’s nothing non-physical about protein, or the process of protein synthesis. And it happens without the aid, or even awareness, of intelligence.
A copy of Great Expectations does not objectively represent anything. Without intelligence and consciousness, the book will sit until it disintegrates. No story will ever be understood. The information in it could be processed, in a sense, by, say, Chat GPT and Claude. They could do with it what they do with any human writing. They could create millions of still frames, or a movie, depicting every moment that, according to their programming, can be depicted that way. They could talk about it with each other, or with people.
But they will never understand what GE truly is. The story was created by an intelligent consciousness, and written down in a symbolic system so that it would not be forgotten, and so that it could be transferred into other intelligent consciousnesses. The story would not exist, and the book would be meaningless, if not for intelligent consciousness.
In the absence of consciousness, there is nothing non-physical about the book. Everything non-physical in all of this comes from the consciousness, not from the paper.
I was thinking about this point. What I got was that, life and living being means it is conscious.
In other words, being conscious is the sign of life and living being. Life and living being means they are conscious.
Therefore consciousness is the sign of life for the life and biologically living being.
Consciousness is not some matter arising or emerging from brain or neurons. It is not some immaterial mysterious existence separated from the body either.
It is the mental quality observable from the complete biologically living being with experience, self identity, ability to interact with the the world and other beings.
We don’t see any conscious brains or conscious neurons or souls walking in the street or knocking on your door or asking you the directions to the nearest post office.
We see conscious people in the work, streets and cities and schools. We see conscious dogs, cats, horses and birds.
I think we need to be careful not to confuse the displaying of behaviours with the presence of consciousness itself. For instance, a person with locked-in syndrome can’t physically do more than move their eyes. Yet, being a human with a fully developed brain, they must still think about the world and have a sense of identity.
I’m also wondering what your view is on whether simple robots and micro-organisms are conscious. This isn’t a “gotcha” question but rather something I’ve wondered about myself. For example, if we imagine one of those little box robots on treads that you can build from a kit, we have a camera which the robot can take in objects in its environment, process that information through internal circuits, and do things like avoid obstacles, pick things up (if it has moveable arms) and retreat from walls. From a behavioural perspective, this suggests the robot could have conciousness.
Similarly, something like a rotifer can detect food sources, prey, or environmental conditions that are favourable or unfavourable. It move away from or toward things depending on what they are. Again, from an external view this looks like conscious behaviour even though the organism lacks a nervous system.
And, again, the amount of time the atoms are separated isn’t relevant. If my atoms are separated for any amount of time, I do not exist.
Yes. I have come to this stance in the last couple weeks. If I break a vase, and glue it back together, it is the same vase. It’s still the same one that was made in the Ming dynasty. It’s just crap now, because it’s got cracks and glue, rather than being a mint condition.
Reassembling my atoms the way we’re discussing doesn’t even have metaphorical cracks and glue.
Regarding my consciousness… I don’t believe there is any non-physical/immaterial “thing” about me. My consciousness is my subjective experience of myself. There is no physical explanation for this subjective experience. The capacity to experience is non-physical, but that doesn’t mean I have a non-physical thing that is my consciousness.
What that means is, after you reassemble my atoms, the subjective experience will begin again, exactly where I left off. There can’t be any difference between the consciousness before my atoms were dispersed and when they were reassembled.
What are they were talking about the physical aspects or the consciousness, it’s identical before or after. Sure, there was a break. Breaking the continuity. But it couldn’t matter less. There is literally no difference
You are really just saying that in the case of total similarity, continuity is irrelevant. No one actually believes continuity is irrelevant. If the original was simply killed, or replaced by someone else entirely, continuity would be of great concern to the original.
You are not escaping the question, you are just answering it: in the case of total indistinguishably, continuity is not a relevant factor. I mean, that is not totally implausible. But it might be a tough pill to swallow for the original.
Imagine this deal being offered: a company will replace you with a clone that is guaranteed and well validated to be indistinguishable to you. As a promotional offer, the clone also gets ten million dollars. You will meet the clone, shake hands, hand over the keys, and be led away to be painlessly euthanized.
If indistinguishability is satisfied, according to you the original should obviously take the deal. But I suspect most people would have grave doubts surrounding their continuity with the clone.